The general problems of damage caused by suddenly applied impact loads are well recognized. Such damages include breakage and destruction of property as well as injury to persons.
Because the occurrence of such impact loads is beyond the control of those who have a need to ship products in commerce by rail, truck, or air and other common carrier transportation, a most common approach to the problem is to provide packaging material and cushioning material in a position around the object in a shipping container to absorb the impacts before they have a damaging effect on the contents being shipped.
In a like manner, persons who are likely to be subjected to impacts either by falling or contact in sports such as football and other "contact" sports often employ cushioning materials in the form of padding to absorb the impacts.
Elderly persons are particularly susceptible to injury, primarily broken bones, through falls and sudden impacts. A major problem for the elderly, who are forming an increasing portion of the population, is susceptibility to broken bones from falls and sudden impacts. Persons of an advanced age find it very difficult to recover from such injuries, and broken hips and joints often lead to complications shortening life.
While numerous materials have been used including paper, granulates, and foams, as padding in the past, the industry has turned to various forms of plastic sheet materials formed in composite structures.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,746,605 - Dillon, et al. shows a cushioning material having a layer of material formed in a plurality of closely spaced cellular protrusions extending from one side and includes restrictive air passages between adjacent cells.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,885,074 Chandler is concerned with a method of thermo-plastic polymeric resin adhesive deposition or adhesive bonding in which the materials are slit or cut before heating to cause the film to assume a pattern directly related to the arrangement or slits. A hexagonal pattern is one of the forms that is obtainable by this method.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,900,356 Koch, et al. shows apparatus and a method for producing a cellular cushioning structure. A gaseous fluid under pressure is contained between the outer films of materials. The pressure of the gas is greater than atmospheric to cause the soften plastic to expand and create cells of super atmospheric pressured gas.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,096,306 Larson reveals a method of making a cushioning material having "bubbles" of super atmospheric gas such as air. The cushioning material is inflatable by passages from one cell to the next.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,287,250 Rudy reveals a packaging and/or cushioning product wherein chambers are inflated initially with a gaseous medium comprising a gas other than air, oxygen or nitrogen which has a very low diffusion rate from each chamber through the sheet material from which the product is formed.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,427,474 Ottaviano reveals a method for the production of air cell cushioning material, with the air cell product being formed from a flexible single stratum sheet of low density, low melting point thermo-plastic such as polyethylene film.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,551,379 Kerr shows still another configuration of cushion material having inflatable passages formed between juxtaposed sheets with adjacent passages being separated by partitions. In one aspect the passages are sinuous so that a plurality of restrictions are preformed along the length to restrict the flow of air. In another aspect, discontinuities are formed in the partitions to allow restrictive air flow from one passage to another.
Because packing materials add to the weight and volume of the freight and objects being shipped, lightweight and compactness are objective features addressed by the prior art as well as many of the products presently in use. However, such objectives should be ideally sought without a reduction in the performance of the material. It is an object of the present invention to achieve a maximum capability for the absorption of impact and energy imparted to the material by the forces impacting on the structure with a minimum energy available for rebound. It is a further object to provide an improved ratio of material usage, material cost, and energy absorption by means of the unique form and geometrical shapes of the elements in the structure and their relation to each other. While prior practitioners have used some of the form and features of the present invention their unique combination presented herein has not been previously taught.
Although the prior art addresses many of the relevant factors that bear on the construction of an improved cushioning structure, none teach the unique form found in the cushioning structure of this invention.